Cookies, Money, Compassion, and Cookies

On the first day of school, I found out Batman was in my class.

On the third day of school, a student brought chocolate chip cookies for the whole class.

On the THIRD DAY, people!

cookies not homemade. me no care.

During the second week of school after I shared with the kids that I had a foreign money collection, four separate kids brought me currency from Fiji, Mexico, Vietnam, and the E.U.

During the third week of school, I couldn't find my reward candy. I shared my sadness with the class that the only time I'd had stuff stolen from me was once years ago, in the notorious Year of the Stolen Sodas, and that I was sad my candy was gone.  The next day, two separate kids brought me candy to replace what was lost.  

I've brought in donuts to the Seminerds already for having 100% homework turned in three times (the bar is upped to four, now). 

This fourth week I found the candy--I am losing my brain cells in this stupefying heat, or maybe old age--and I got to rejoice with them ALL for being upright and trustworthy!

AND this fourth week the same kid again brought in cookies for the class.

Yeah, ridiculously hot and humid weather aside (and no a/c in sight), we're off to a great start.

Haiku for a Disappointed Parent

Every day is a new day. Every day is a new chance to be better.

A D? (Hmm, your child
Didn't use the study guide
or look at his notes...

...He didn't ask questions
Or write out practice answers
the way others did....

.....I sent you notice
of what would be tested, and
essay questions, too....)

You "know he can do
better--he wants a retake--
Can he please have one?"

Oh, dear parent friend
This is not a driver's test
A D won't kill him

Do you know what? I
know he can do better, too.
ON THE NEXT TEST. Watch.

I do believe in
second chances; just
not on the same test.

Christmas is coming!!

As a kid, I went to two elementary schools, a junior high school, and a high school in the same district I teach in today. I did my student teaching at two schools and as a contracted teacher have taught in three schools in this district, the 2nd largest in California.

I have NEVER worked, as a student or teacher, in a classroom that had air conditioning. (That's a looonnnnnngggg time. I'm hoping to retire in less than ten years.)

Look--a person absolutely can learn in high heat and thick humidity. But for the cohort I work with, thirteen year olds, learning can be a challenge in the most temperate of times. If my 35 kiddos struggle with the Mayflower Compact when it's 75° outside, imagine their difficulty when it's 95° outside and the humidity is at 80%. When I got home from school as a kid, it was to an under insulated home with no a/c. Hot at school, hot at home, I didn't really have much comparison. But most of the kids at our site have a/c. They know better. We've had students vomiting from the heat, suffering from heat stroke, and at least one teacher who was in danger of heat stroke.

Some people think the most beautiful sentence in the English language is "I love you." I think it might be "I forgive you." But right up there are these words I never really believed I'd hear: "Our air conditioning is coming mid-October."


In C.S. Lewis's classic, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Mr. Tumnus tells Lucy that the White Witch has cast a spell on Narnia such that it is always winter, and never Christmas. Well evil Humidity Heat Witch, start packing your bags or whatever it is that evil witches pack: you've been given notice.

Move over, Humidity Heat Witch--Father Christmas is getting me some a/c!!

Super Start

First day moments:

Coolio, the portable a/c a friend lent to me, shuts down before period 1. So sad. My high hopes are dashed.

Coolio sort of looks like this.

No ants this year!!!  A billion hurrahs! I cut and distribute the power pie, insect-free.

Last year they were EVERYWHERE.

As I near the white board, a funky smell reaches me. It is NOT the smell of stinky teenager. It is the smell of something organic. I try not to think about it, and after that class, I put a powerful odor catcher in the offending zone. Dear Lord, please don't let it be what I think it might be.

Truly thought this trouble was behind us. It might be under us. 

Not one kiddo complains of heat (or stinky zone).

Good sports--love them already!

Colleague brings me a gorgeous lavender plant and an uplifting note on a beautiful card.

A visual reminder to stay calm.

At lunch I buy a soda from the vending machine. It is warm. Is Coolio conspiring with other campus appliances to keep me from cooling down?

So glad our fridge has an ice maker. 

Today was a minimum day! ANNNND we got to leave without going to any meetings! WHooP!

I wish. I went to Vons.

Under the heading "Something I should know about you," a student writes, "I'm Batman."

(Tomorrow I will tell him, "No, I'M Batman.)

Don't get me wrong--

I get a little down in September and it's NOT because I don't love what I do.

It's because I love my summers. Long mornings, being fit once again, naps, BOOKS. I get down because all that disappears AND because I start all over again.

Come June, the kids and I have become a strange learning family. We have all kinds of shorthand and inside jokes. They know when I am joking around and when I am deadly serious. They can read my face and body language. They ask about my family and they bring me chocolate and cookies. And I can read them, as well.

Come September,  I am playing to a tough crowd. I crack all sorts of hiLARious jokes and they are scared to laugh--I'm serious--they will snigger into their hands because "what if this crazy teacher lady isn't trying to make us laugh and we get in trouble?" I forget how difficult it is to cleanly launch a class on a successful learning trajectory, how tough it is to teach them that we often enjoy our learning, but Fun is not the point--LEARNING is the point.

It's all good by October.  The cookies start coming, and they learn they can joke back and we laugh with abandon as long as we stay en pointe.

Here's to a new year with kids who catch on quickly!

"Mommy! Mommy!"

Have a nightmare when you are little, and you wake up, run to your parents' bedroom and get some immediate comfort there. I had this year's first school dream--nightmare, really--last night, with no Mommy in sight. Glad the alarm went off, because while I was persevering in my dream, it was NO FUN. (Understatement.)

I'd been last-minute transferred to another site;

Of course no rosters;

Thrown into a classroom that wasn't kid-ready, or me-ready;

After the bell had rung.

Next door was a band room that kept the door open.

On the other side of my room was a huge room that kids could just slip into unnoticed because I had no rosters and didn't know who my kids were.

I was desperately obeying the First Rule of Middle School Teaching: "Stay calm." But there was no way I could obey The Second Rule of Middle School Teaching, "Be over prepared," because, well, last-minute transfer to a crazy room after the bell.

I suppose it could have been worse. I mean, at least I had my clothes on, right??

Dun dun dunnnnn...!!!

What happens to a school when the head custodian and the head secretary both retire at the same time, leaving rookies all sophomore administrators?

• The custodian noticed my pathetic three dollar garage sale lectern. "I'll build you one." He did, and man, that thing's gonna last forever.

• The secretary would call in my subs for me. I don't even know how to do that.

• The custodian would offer to carry my loads of work for me.

• The secretary would iron the table cloths for the school and clean the teachers' refrigerator.

• The custodian knew where every piece of furniture was hidden on campus and could fix or replace a broken piece after one email.

• The secretary would house, give direction, and encouragement to the worst "academic offender" that our former principal was committed to working with and shopped with the students our school supported to go to out annual D.C/NYC. trip, making sure they had cameras (pre-cell phone days!).

• The custodian personally fought--and won--the infamous 2012 Rat War of Outer Bungalowia. 

• The secretary personally helped the financial secretary prepare delicious food for the staff in the legendary year of Waffle Wednesdays, 2013. (A subsequent school-wide weight loss challenge has ended that beloved tradition. Now I cry a little inside, every Wednesday.)

• The custodian would turn on the heat in our non-insulated bungalows on chilly mornings. (And he never told the teachers, but I found out he would prepare the avocados for our guacamole for our frequent staff potlucks before the end of that tradition because of the subsequent weight loss challenge.)

• The secretary would hear my joys, burdens, dreads, and general silliness with love. She said I reminded her of her own daughter, and she has been my school mom.

They take with them decades of knowledge and unconscious competence. Both have done their best to leave well-marked trails for their successors, but all I can say in response to my interior Saturday morning cartoon "Dun dun dunnnnn!" cliff hanger music is we shall see.

(Personally? My school parents are leaving and I am sad.)